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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep, not as as single topical article, but rather with any sourced content merged into more specific articles, and the term remaining as navigational aid, where the current disambiguation style page is being preferred over a redirect. Tikiwont (talk) 10:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Living dinosaurs

[edit]
Living dinosaurs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This is simply an original research synthesis of disparate claims of living dinosaurs. There are three disparate ideas (birds, cryptids, and creationism) that are wholly unrelated except that authors cobbled them together. No reliable sources actually treat this as a topic in such a fashion. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep Now listen, I know you Wikipedia nerds have absolutely nothing better to do with your lives then waste them away on this website, but the concept of living dinosaurs is a major one in cryptozoology and wether you believe it or not, wether you like it or not, cryptozoology is actually a study. Mokele Mbembe, Burrunjor, Emela Ntouka, Kasai Rex,even though I believe in NONE of them, there are hundreds of living dinosaur stories. If you delete this, why not delete EVERY cryptozoology related article? Its not worthy of YOUR WONDERFUL little encyclopedia you've got here now is it? Then proceed to delete articles about zoology, because theres already an entire wiki devoted to it, and its not really suitable for you WONDERUL little project you've got going on here now is it? And poliitcs, get rid of that, too dull. Anyhting Media related, its fictious so it doesn't contrribute to your BRILLIANT little project now does it? Current events are too recent to be properly recorded, delete them. Then you'll have what you want, the Title page saying WIKIPEDIA, and the diusscussion page where all you nerds discuss your sad sad pathetic little attempts at lives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spikeesam (talk • contribs) 08:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • STRONG Keep this is not OR as there is no conclusion being drawn from the synthesis of the different fields using the term "living dinosaur". It would only be OR if there was point being made by bringing these fields together. There isn't, and the term "living dinosaur" is popularly used. This is also NOT the kidn of article that "notability' applies to. —Pengo 11:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/Merge parts of it are OR and a violation of WP:SYN as conclusions are drawn, i.e. Such reports are problematic, as no physical evidence has been brought forth, and without such evidence it is difficult (if not impossible) to identify the animals in such reports as dinosaurs. That said, sections are referenced and valid and could easily be covered in the respective main articles that are already linked: birds and creationist views. I don't think this is a standalone article. TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 11:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge relevant info into Dinosaur and Cryptozoology. There's some valid sources in here, but it's mixed in with WP:OR and WP:SYN. -- Kesh (talk) 12:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Merge/Redirect to Cryptozoology. The fact that there are books written on the subject and several scientists claim some dinosaurs still exists is notable enough, as their claims can be easily sourced (as demonstrating by all the references and external links). However, this article is quite redundant with cryptozoology, and usable parts should be salvaged and merged. —BradV 13:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Changed vote to keep as article has been rewritten as a disambiguation page. —BradV 20:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: We have disparate topics covered by a single term. Most references to "living dinosaurs" are to birds and the popularizing science literature that attempts to explain this once-surprising conclusion to amateurs. However, the cryptozoology folks loves them the idea of Nessie the dinosaur, etc., and they have taken the contents of the article. I.e. the article's name is most widely heard in the context of "birds," but the article's contents are about a fringe set of beliefs. Maintaining this as a redirect will frustrate the people who want background on the dinosaur-bird derivation thesis, and allowing it to stay as a cryptozoology fan page does even worse by giving WP:UNDUE presence to a theory that is already covered elsewhere. The best course of action is to delete, and possibly salt, to prevent more spill over and hijacking of search terms. Utgard Loki (talk) 14:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with cleanup as a notable topic. The reason it looks like three disparate topic is because there are three disparate concepts that get associated with living dinosaurs (birds, cryptids, and creationist stuff). I am all in favor of keeping it short and sweet, just an overview of the topic. It could probably be just the bird paragraph, paragraphs 1 and 3+4 of the cryptid section, and the creationism paragraph, and a healthy scrubbing of "See also" and "External links". It's not a non-notable topic, just an article that no one wants to touch. Let's just strip it down to the essentials of the three subtopics and keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't veer off into tangents. J. Spencer (talk) 14:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    This is still a synthesis unless you can point to a reliable source that connects these three ideas. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I'm fine with that solution too. I'm really concerned that a delete (especially a delete and salt) would be an instance of systematic bias against minority scientific opinions, and a violation of neutral point of view. —BradV 14:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any reliable source that indicates a peer reviewed article has appeared on this subject in the scientific community? If not, then the subject isn't a "minority scientific opinion": it's just hogwash. Not that we can't discuss hogwash on Wikipedia, but we need to establish the existence of the hogwash that is not original research. No one arguing for a keep has done that so far. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If it's coming off as a synthesis, it's not supposed to. There just are three ways that people have used "living dinosaurs": as birds, as cryptids, and in terms of creationism. There has been overlap in the second and third types, but otherwise I envision this page as a disambiguation page with bells and whistles. Dinosaur (disambiguation) is not a synthesis, but a collection of different terms associated with dinosaur. I see something similar for this page, that people have used "living dinosaur" for distinctly different topics. Nowhere in the article that I can see are the disparate concepts actually synthesized into anything. (by the way, I carried out my suggestion a couple of comments above, and reduced Cryptids to two paragraphs and stripped "see also" and "external links"). J. Spencer (talk) 14:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a disambiguation page. It's trying to pass itself off as an article. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's all I have. Regardless of my personal opinion of the cryptid part of the topic (see the talk page for lengthy discussions), I think that there is a decent article to be had that includes something about cryptids, and that this article wouldn't fit well in other articles. It doesn't have to be much, just a paragraph or two explaining that there have been claimed sightings but no physical evidence, and that the existence of nonavian living dinosaurs is not supported by science. J. Spencer (talk) 14:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge any salvagable portions to Cryptozoology or Cryptids (and Birds, if any), and redirect to Cryptids use Alunsalt's idea below. --Ali'i 14:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- redirecting this page to cryptids would be very problematic as the most academic treatment of "living dinosaurs" is birds. If you're going to make a redirect, you should at least do it to birds. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)*[reply]
    Birds would be the most widely supported redirect. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: Would re-writing as a disambiguation page (with a bare bones may refer to Birds or Cryptzoology) be a reasonable compromise? Alun Salt (talk) 14:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Why should we unduly weight the fantasies of Nessie fanatics? After all, paleontologists own the term "dinosaurs" and they are the ones who determines what is and is not a dinosaur. Find me a legitimate dispute amongst paleontologists who think that Nessie isn't a living dinosaur and those that think that Nessie is a living dinosaur and then we can entertain the notion of "compromise". By the way, I think that the later group may be an empty set. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) Without something from a scientific journal to support the cryptzoological tales, a bare disambig would give them vastly undue WP:WEIGHT. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec)I think so. ScienceApologist says that the "most academic treatment" is birds, which I won't disagree with. However, it would not be right to just redirect to birds as it implies that there are no alternate points of view. A disambiguation between birds and cryptozoology would be an adequate neutral position. —BradV 14:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Why should we accommodate some lunatic's "alternative point of view"? After all we're supposed to write the most verifiable encyclopedia possible. Pandering to Nessie fanatics is just that, pandering. See WP:FRINGE. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Let me ask this: When someone searches Wikipedia for "Living dinosaurs", what are they looking for? This is not a matter of WP:UNDUE or WP:FRINGE, this is WP:NPOV. —BradV 14:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Naively, I'd say that when someone searches Wikipedia for "Living dinosaurs" they are looking for living dinosaurs. Therefore they would probably be edified and educated to find out that birds are living dinosaurs. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hmmm... you're probably right, ScienceApologist. The only thing that I would mention is that when thinking about the term "Living dinosaurs", I would guess that most people (not academics) think of a T-Rex-type dino still roaming around somewhere (like Mokele-mbembe) or a plesiosaur swimming in a lake (like Nessie), rather than the term as a term describing what actually happened (became birds, to simplify). Maybe Alunsalt's idea above would be workable. --Ali'i 14:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Folks come here to learn stuff. The worry is, crypto-dinos are not in any way a scientifically supported alternative PoV. I think a link to Cryptzoology in the see also section of Dinosaur would be ok though. The only "living dinosaurs" supported by reliable sources are birds. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I know. Let me try and clarify what I meant. There is a difference between the term "living dinosaurs" (used to refer to birds), and the belief that there are dinosaurs (big, old-timey creatures) still living out there somewhere (the crypto view). You have to think about the reader. There will be a selection of our readers that will search on the term hoping to find information on cryptids. There will be a selection of our readers that will search on the term hoping to find info on birds. I won't venture a guess at how the population of our readers is split between the two. Hopefully I am making sense. Mahalo. --Ali'i 15:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NOT Bingo. What we should think about are the schoolchildren who know nothing of anything and just want to find out about living dinosaurs. It would be a whole lot better for them to find themselves at birds than at cryptids. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:20, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The point is, though, people will be looking for cryptid "living dinosaurs", otherwise we wouldn't have the article in the first place; it would be useful to at least inform them what happened to the cryptid part, perhaps per Xymmax below. J. Spencer (talk) 15:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In popular culture maybe. This would have to be sourced. In scientific journals? I don't think this would be true but a source would cast aside all worries, WP:V. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are plenty of sources, as I noted in my comment below. This article doesn't have to cite scientific journals (although it would be fine if someone cited a scientific journal saying, no, a crocodile is not actually a living dinosaur). --Pixelface (talk) 19:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (edit conflict) Then they could be included in the disambiguation too? The term living dinosaur may refer to... If someone comes to Wikipedia after watching Godzilla, I'm not convinced that a plain redirect to Birds will leave them educated. If there's a problem with the cryptozoology pages then surely that's best tackled on those pages? I say if, but I've just read a few of them. If this is purely a question of Biology then I agree with ScienceApologist. If you think of Cryptids as Folklore then it's not so clear. Alun Salt (talk) 19:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)(!indent) When I suggested the redirect to List of Cryptids I was unaware that we might actually encounter it in the wild as a search term for birds. Since it seems that it really is plausible search term, just redirect to Birds, and throw one of those redirect/other uses templates there. (You know, the ones that produce text to the effect of "Living dinosaurs redirects here, for mythical creatures, see Cryptids" Should address everyone's concerns. Xymmax (talk) 15:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could be feasible; I'd be willing to try it out and see what happens. J. Spencer (talk) 15:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stubify to a DAB I don't think there's any need for an article of this title, since other articles cover the material perfectly well. But, since the term can either be taken to mean mean birds or Nessie, make the page a stub/disambiguation page to link to Cryptozoology and birds, with a brief explanation of why/how each term is used. Sheffield Steeltalkstalk 15:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment since my post, edits have been made that more or less matched what I had in mind. On that basis, I win changing to Keep. Sheffield Steeltalkstalk 05:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete Neutral Other than Birds, which has a wonderful article, and Paleocene dinosaurs, which is under a lot of scientific dispute, there are no dinosaurs after the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, so anything else is pseudoscience. Cryptozoology is not science, and this article does not need to survive, just to list out suspect cryptozoology claims, most of which have been long debunked. Moreover, articles on Birds and Paleocene dinosaurs suffice to cover any discussion of "living dinosaurs." Thanks to whomever nominated this article for deletion. About time. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 15:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I've changed to neutral, because the article is improved. However, there are no living dinosaurs except for birds, so we are giving weight to fringe theories. I don't like that. It has to be made clear that science knows that, save for our birds, dinosaurs went extinct at the K-T event. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I don't see how an article on supposed living dinosaurs is worse than an article on 9/11 conspiracy theories. We can talk about fringe theories in an objective manner, and the belief in (non-avian) living dinosaurs has had a long-standing role in our culture. Ivan T. Sanderson wrote about living dinosaurs in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1940s. The University of Chicago's Roy Mackal searched for living dinosaurs in Africa and wrote a book about it [1]. There was a movie, Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, which was inspired by legends of living dinosaurs. Within the last couple of decades, many creationists have tried to use accounts of living dinosaurs to discredit evolution. (Wrongly, but still...) There's a lot to work with here; this topic is way too broad to merit a merge to cryptozoology or dinosaur or a similar page. Zagalejo^^^ 16:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but abridge It seems pretty decent as a pseudo-disambiguation page, but it should be abridged to only briefly explain the three meanings and direct people elsewhere. Some caution, however, would need to be taken to prevent it getting bulked back up.. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've taken the liberty of doing this. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I support this change. —BradV 17:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Mmmm... ok. But I still think we should have a more detailed treatment of living dinosaurs within the context of cryptozoology. As I said, Fortean types have been writing about living dinosaurs since the 1940s, if not earlier. Wikipedia shouldn't imply that living dinosaurs exist, but we should try to objectively document some of the best-known claims/rumors/legends about them. We shouldn't ignore these stories entirely, as they have their place in folklore and popular culture. Zagalejo^^^ 19:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The history for the article still exists, so you can merge useful content into cryptozoology or cryptid. —BradV 19:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If someone wants to make a focused article on dinosaurs in cryptozoology, that's a seperate issue, and probably harmless: I mean, the only real problem would be if the number of people interested in cryptozoology were too few too support the number of cryptozoological articles, but even then it could always be upmerged to the main cryptozoology page later. However, having three completely different topics on one page is not going to allow any sort of focus, and without focus, improving an article is very difficult. The section in the history may not be the most scintillating and wonderful thing on Wikipedia, but, well, if people are interested, it'd make a good start to then improve from. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, I'm confident there are plenty of sources[2][3][4][5][6][7] that could be used to write an article about the topic of "living dinosaurs". Cryptozoology may partly consist of a search for "living dinosaurs" but I wouldn't support a redirect to that article. --Pixelface (talk) 17:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but abridge - as is at the moment is good. A fairly notable concept in that folks ask about it alot, yet can refer to several disparate unconnected ideas - i.e. birds, or Paleocene dinosaurs or cryptozoology ideas all of which are unrelated to each other. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 17:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep more or less in its present form as a disam page. The various google etc. hits are most metaphors; the only creationist use i saw was that there were living dinosaurs at the time of Noah, not that they are still alive today. I'd have no objection to an article on such speculations also.DGG (talk) 19:52, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Perhaps "false" was a misleading term. What I meant was that redirections (via either a DAB or a REDIRECT) are statements, such as much as any sentence in any article. Therefore, when the purpose of such a redirect is not obvious, such as same/similar spellings, we have to be careful we aren't adding statements to our encyclopedia that don't fall under WP:V, WP:RS, etc. The association between the origins of birds and creationism to "living dinosaurs" is NOT obvious. However, the association to cryptozoology (one topic is wholly dealt by the other) and living fossil (similar/possibly confused terms) IS obvious. I did not mean "false" to mean "incorrect"; I meant "false" to mean "an unintended, unverifiable, and not-reliably-sourced advancement of a position". I've striken the offending word to avoid further misunderstandings. However, I disagree with your assessment that because a redirect can reasonably go to two different places, that this automatically means that a disambiguation page is needed. There are literally hundreds of examples of this NOT being true, which is one of the main reasons that the {{redirect}} template exists in the first place. I'm sure you've seen on many places phrasology like: Living dinosaurs redirects here. For the search of animals thought to be extinct, see cryptozoology. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 11:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But the thing is, the redirect template is not for cases where we might say redirect to Cryptozoology or [[Living fossil]; it's for cases where the correct redirect is obvious, but there are other possiblities. Like United States or Paris.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, exactly! In fact, I said those exact words above. I believe that is EXACTLY the case we have here. The problem with the page as it exists is that we are not "disambiguating" anything. That DAB page makes assertions, statements, and definitions with a longish list of "see other"s. That's outside the scope of what a DAB is supposed to do. I still really think that a REDRIRECT to one with a {{redirect}} to the other is the proper course of action here. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 15:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You said what words, the ones I disagreed with? Again, it always wrong to say that a redirect to one with a notice to the other; if you can't say definitively which article it should go to, then it should go to a dab page. Redirects are only for things that are unambiguous in pretty much all cases.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, WP:REDIRECT disagrees with your assessment, which indicates one should use the "Principle of least astonishment". Since the term "living dinosaur" doesn't appear in any of the so-called "disambiguated article" titles, and "living dinosaur" is not (as WP:DAB puts it) the natural choice for any of the titles, its not really a proper DAB either. However, this conversation has outlived its usefulness. I'm clearly in the minority here and even though I think my course of action is perfectly valid and backed up by several guidelines, I have no consensus and obviously won't obtain it, so don't bother to browbeat me anymore, Prosfilanes. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 07:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The article is well sourced; it appears to be simply describing a theory. I would propose it be un-abridged however; there was a good deal of basic level information taken out, and some of that (namely the "cryptids" section) did a really good job of pointing out the flaws in the theory. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 17:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
'well-sourced'? It doesn't even have a single source on it! Are we looking at the same article? -- ShinmaWa(talk) 13:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm referring to the pre-gutted version: [10] JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 04:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, either as pseudo-DAB or paragraphed. Has been improved sufficiently; the phrase is important enough to point somewhere; and it should not point to any of the subcategories without dab. John J. Bulten (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I just made a couple of Google searches to test the water. "Loch Ness monster" produces 780000 hits, while "bird"+"dinosaur" produces 510000. This confirms my impression that the didacts here have their work cut out for them. But, so far as I am aware, Wikipedia does not have a didactic goal. One of the Nots even says that it is explicitly not a work of instruction. In other words, we are not here to tell people The Truth. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:V is not going to go very far with most of the Loch Ness monster hits. We aren't writing an encyclopedia for the ship of fools. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relax. One need not be a "fool" to be interested in the Loch Ness monster. It's still important folklore. If Wikipedia were just an encyclopedia of science, then it would be fair to eliminate all mentions of cryptozoology, but we're much more than that. Zagalejo^^^ 02:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think, and please correct me if I am wrong, that ScienceApologist was pointing out that Ghits may not be the best metric for deciding this issue (... 5 days and going strong). I have not checked, but I would not be surprised if many more of the bird-related hits score higher on "reliability" than the body of cryptid-related links. As he points out, the whole point of having human editors is so we can use our common sense rather than blindly drifting with the web. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 05:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I don't doubt that the bird-related hits are generally more reliable. I guess my response was influenced by some of SA's earlier comments. ("Why should we accommodate some lunatic's 'alternative point of view'? After all we're supposed to write the most verifiable encyclopedia possible. Pandering to Nessie fanatics is just that, pandering.") Zagalejo^^^ 05:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not arguing for a removal of all cryptozoology content. I'm arguing that trying to put it on the same footing with more reliable scientific sources about "living dinosaurs" is asinine. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be treating this page as a science article, which it is not. It's a navigational tool, and as such, it must give attention to all possible senses of this term, whether in hard science or in pop pseudoscience. Listing those different meanings does not imply that everything has "equal footing". Zagalejo^^^ 15:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In its original form, the article did attempt to create a WP:SYN argument about what the term "living dinosaur" meant, mixing discussions of birds with crypto-concepts. During this AfD it was revised to be more like a disambiguation page. -- Kesh (talk) 16:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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